Cut and Run
by vampassassin
Summary: Alex Rider’s life is run by people who see him merely as a disposable tool. He’s been beat up, run down and sent all over the world for reason’s he doesn’t understand or care about. So, it’s no wonder he’s looking for a way to cut and run.


**Cut and Run

* * *

****This is just a littrle one-shot that popped into my head randomly. It functions a little outside the canon timeframe and storyline. Not much, but a little...  
**

**Short Summary: **Alex Rider's life is run by people who see him merely as a tool. He's been beat up, run down and sent all over the world for reason's he doesn't understand or care about. So, it's no wonder he's looking for a way to cut and run.

* * *

Alex stalked through the crowded marketplace like a cat: fluid and subtle. He slipped between groups of bustling, loudly chattering people without making it obvious he was doing so. It almost wasn't obvious he moved at all. He was simply behind the tall woman carrying the basket on her head one moment, hidden in the shadows beneath an awning the next.

But then, such covertness, such subtle camouflage was necessary. The man he was here to kill was dangerous, he could hurt and kill Alex very easily himself. Not just could… Would. What's more, Alex was in a very different country to his own. If he was discovered, he would have no place or person to turn to for safety. He would be adrift and vulnerable, amidst a sea of hostile strangers.

So, Alex was very careful. He had been from the day he'd been assigned to watch and kill the man known only as 'The Bombmaker'. He'd had his all too conspicuous blonde hair dyed black and had used a skin pigment, similar to what he'd used during the whole Snakehead affair, to render himself of Mediterranean or maybe middle-eastern appearance. He would have used a darker pigment to blend in even more with the rest of Algiers, but experimentation with the dye had found that there was only so dark he could pigment his skin before the entire disguise looked entire fraudulent. A light to medium coffee complexion, however, worked just fine.

So, it was unnoticed that Alex glided along, never falling too far behind the man he'd been sent to spy on. Whilst the busy marketplace was a difficult place to remain focused in, the myriads of people offered an advantage in that they disguised Alex from the Bombmaker's line of sight.

Which was just as well. Yusef Amadi was a truly dangerous man. He was wanted worldwide for his reputation as an expert in explosives manufacture and more importantly, the career he had created from selling this expertise to criminal and terrorist organisations globally. He'd been traced to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Armed Islamic Group (whose violence had lately begun to reappear in Algeria), the Chechen rebels and perhaps most alarmingly (to Alex anyway), Scorpia.

As if this frightening and ill used expertise in explosives wasn't enough, Yusef was a physical danger as well. He stood very near to seven feet tall, looked as if he was constructed of stone, and was known to be armed and more then proficient in Obnu Bilate, a martial art form that had started in South Africa, but had mostly died out in modern times.

'_Meaning that I won't have been trained to fight it off.' _Alex thought wryly, as he darted between two vibrantly dressed and cheerfully jabbering women in order to follow Yusef down a less busy, but still crowded side-street, _'Wonderful.'_

This realisation was a sobering one, and not for the first time, Alex felt the old resentment over the way his life had been effectively taken over by MI6 and placed in hazard by exactly these sorts of circumstances. Gut churning; he reflected on the path his life had been forced to take, getting him to his point.

* * *

He'd gone through his first mission at age 14. Throughout that year, he undertook more missions then he'd wanted to, but less then what the 'worst case scenario' part of Alex's brain had been expecting.

Then, he turned fifteen. Literally a day after his birthday, MI6 had called. One of their other agents, only a few years older then Alex himself, had disappeared in Germany. They needed him badly; all their other agents were otherwise engaged. Alex had hesitantly agreed to search for the agent, acting as the missing agent's younger cousin with an adult escort, playing the role of his 'mother'. Mission accomplished.

Perhaps encouraged by Alex's submittal, MI6 had been quick to force him into more missions, gradually becoming more and more difficult and tiring. In the year that Alex was fifteen, he undertook ten separate missions. He visited seven different countries and had ten different sets of 'parents', or 'older siblings' or 'uncles/aunts'.

That year was exhausting. Upon his return from the tenth mission (a nasty affair with some French anarchists), Alex was bruised, battered and more then a little embittered against the world he lived in. He was months behind his school work, he'd lost all friends except for Tom and was psychologically recovering after pretending to share the French anarchists' moral nihilist and twisted views on the world. Alex was glad to return home and resume his regularly scheduled life.

However, it didn't last long. The ay he turned sixteen, Alex received a call from MI6. Angry and upset, Alex had refused to answer, much to Jack and Tom's relief. However, MI6 refused to be ignored. Alex was taken from his own birthday dinner by a pair of armed thugs representing Liverpool Street. When he'd dragged his feet over accompanying them into the car, one of them had grabbed Jack and threatened to hurt her. Furious, but helpless, Alex had allowed himself to be physically dragged from the scene and quite literally bound, gagged and thrown into the car before being transported to the Royal and General.

It turned out that he was to recover another missing agent, this time in Russia. When Alex had refused to assist, MI6 had revealed their coup de grâce, in terms of coercion: the missing agent was only fifteen, a girl and was being held hostage by a ring of criminals who were infamous for selling just such girls into the sex slave industry. They'd been secretly training a second teenager, encouraged by the success of what they referred to as their 'prototype'. However, this teenager had not had the same training Alex had and thus had been captured. If Alex did not rescue her, these criminals would reveal her existence to the entire world before selling her.

So, Alex did the only thing his conscience would allow: he received his briefing for the mission and got on the next plane to St. Petersburg. However, upon arriving and undergoing some rudimentary spying, Alex quickly discovered all was not as it seemed. There was no teenage agent, not even any female agent. The so called 'sex slavery kidnappers' were in fact a group of Scorpia cast-offs, banded together and making money out of dealing with the local mafyia. Alex's actual mission was to gather as much information about the remnants of Scorpia as possible before planting explosives in their hideout and destroying the entire group.

As if this betrayal wasn't enough, MI6 had either missed or neglected to mention one other significant obstacle, rather personal to Alex. This obstacle was an uncomfortably familiar Russian national by the name of Yassen Gregorovich. Obviously, Alex had been shocked to see the man alive. Unfortunately, this shock had resulted in Alex giving an inappropriately loud gasp in a situation where utter silence would have served him better (in other words, he'd been hiding in a ventilation shaft). This in turn lead to a reunion of sorts, resulting in Alex spending the best part of a month hostage to a rather aggravatingly smug and satisfied Yassen. This ended when Yassen grew tired of Alex's continual, but unsuccessfully escape attempts and when MI6 offered the Russian a million dollars in return for secrecy on the matter (the money was superfluous, Yassen had never had any intention of revealing Alex's existence to the world). Almost immediately after Yassen released Alex, MI6 hired an assassin to take the Russian out.

It was unsuccessful. Yassen gleefully posted the assassin's messy remains back to MI6 in a package disguised as one of their own government supply boxes.

Alex also received mail from the Russian: a belated card and present (a very expensive and powerful laptop computer) for his sixteenth birthday.

However, these were confiscated by MI6 and Alex didn't hear or see the Russian again. Enraged over his mistake in Russia (or perhaps more truthfully, his deliberate failure), Alan Blunt had Jack sent back to America, Alex unenrolled from Brookland and placed in MI6's immediate care. This meant Alex was forced to live on his own in a tiny, horrible flat, close to the bank. He was kept under constant surveillance and was not allowed to leave the UK or indeed London, without prior permission.

To complete Alex's utter misery, he was sent on fifteen missions that year. He visited twenty different countries, went through more false family members then he could keep track of and never once received more then a pittance for any of his labours.

Then, a week after he turned seventeen, came the straw that broke the camel's back: the Bosnian mission.

To put it simply, a Bosnian drug lord was on the rise in Eastern Europe and was beginning to fraternise with organisations MI6 did not want him anywhere near. This time, Scorpia was involved for real. Alex was instructed to go to the drug lord's growing organisation and pretend to be addicted to his drugs. From there, he would work himself into a position he could spy on more prominent members of the cartel.

To say things didn't go according to plan was an understatement. To begin with, the fake drugs Alex was supposed to be 'addicted' to never showed up. The agent responsible for providing them had been hit by a car and killed. Push came to shove, Alex was caught in a corner where the only options were take the real drugs or fail the mission and face even worse consequences. Alex took the real drugs and quickly started forming a habit. He still managed to work himself into a position in the cartel, but after an especially large trip one night, Alex accidentally blew his own cover.

Alex received a broken wrist, two black eyes, a split lip, a fractured rib and stab wound to the abdomen before he was able to escape his attackers. However, in order to escape the organisation althogether with his life and ability to report all that he had learnt back to MI6 intact, Alex was forced to kill. In the heat of a life and death scuffle, Alex managed to get his hands on a gun and fuelled by the fear and drugs in his system, he shot one of the cartel members in the face. After that, he managed to call his handler on a pay phone before passing out and being transported back to a hospital in London.

It didn't matter that Alex was injured badly, that he was traumatised over killing a man, that he now faced a terrible, drawn out process of withdrawal from his drug habit. He'd completed his mission mandate, and that was all MI6 cared about. Alex had always known he meant little to the organisation he worked for, but he'd never realised to what extent this disregard had existed.

It broke him. As soon as he was healed enough for it, Alex went into the Royal and General of his own free will. He told them he gave up, he wouldn't try to escape anymore, he wouldn't fight them, that'd he work for them willingly. His life had been robbed from him, he had nothing but what MI6 offered him anymore.

At seventeen years of age, Alex Rider had given up.

* * *

That was how Alex was where he was now: seventeen years old, fast as a snake, strong as steel and hunting a vicious criminal in Algeria. That was what came from defeat, from submittal.

Alex was jerked from his reflection when he suddenly realised that whilst his mind had wondered, his feet had done their job and followed Yusef. However, this had proven foolish as Yusef (perhaps sensing he was being followed) had lead Alex's feet down an alarmingly dark, deserted side alley. Alex was now the only other person within sight and it was obvious what he was doing there. To make matters worse, Yusef had vanished.

Alex came to a quick stop, hastily considering his options. However, his train of thought was disrupted when Yusef suddenly stepped out from behind the ruins of a market-stall right in front of him. Before Alex could even think of defending himself, Yusey swung a might fist and Alex was thrown backwards. He landed on his back (nearly destroying everything in the backpack he wore) in the dirt, crushing a pile of rickety wooden pallets with the impact of his fall.

Ignoring the way his back screamed in protest, Alex quickly rolled to his left to avoid the massive foot that Yusef sent crashing down towards his face. The man's weight and strength were his main weapons physically speaking, and Alex eager not to allow Yusef to bring them to bear.

Getting to his feet, Alex deftly avoid a kick Yusef sent his way and darted in, hoping to land a few jabs over the enormous man's solar plexus, in order to wind him. In theory, it would work.

In real life however, it proved pitiful as an attack. Alex found upon his fists making contact with the other man that Yusef's body didn't just look like it was made of stone, it felt like it too. Rather then winding him, Alex's jabs merely made Yusef give an exasperated growl.

Alex didn't have time to utter a curse before Yusef lashed out with a mighty fist. It caught him squarely in the jaw, knocking him to the ground once more.

Only this time, Alex thought that maybe he might have a bit more trouble getting up again.

Giving a grunt of satisfaction, Yusef leant over and hoisted Alex up by the front of his jacket. However, when Alex's face was revealed in a patch of dusty sunlight, Yusef's expression darkened and a frown appeared on his face.

"A child?" He demanded, "What child follows and attacks me?"

"Obviously," Alex muttered past a bloodied mouth and a nauseatingly spinning world, "A really stupid one."

His self-deprecating humour fell short on Yusef Amadi though. The man's frown deepened and he shook his head slowly.

"Are you a street urchin?" He asked, "Is that why you attacked me? Are you looking for money?"

Alex thought about lying briefly, but considering he was seeing stars and was still having trouble deciding whether or not he was going to black out, he decided he wouldn't be able to keep any sort of story straight.

"N-oh." Alex moaned, "I was supposed to kill you actually."

Yusef Amadi gave a great, terrifying boom of laughter.

"With what?" He asked in amusement, "Those little kitten paws you call fists?"

Mostly fuelled by the blow, Alex replied without thinking.

"Look inside my jacket."

Yusef did so, only to find the sleek automatic pistol Alex had hidden inside his jacket. Not quite as amused now, Yusef removed the weapon. He tossed it aside and frowning once more, set Alex back on his feet in front of him.

"Who sent you to shoot me?" He asked, "Was it the Mossad?"

Alex frowned and as his mind cleared, he wondered what Yusef had one that he expected the Israeli Secret Service to send an assassin after him.

"No, MI6." He replied, "I'm English."

Surprise showed on Yusef's face. Obviously, Alex's disguise had fooled him.

"You don't have an accent."

Alex shrugged. Countless disguises, covers and visits to different countries had meant that his English accent had ceased to exist about five months ago.

"Yes, well, that's not important." Alex said, "Now what are you going to do to me? Are you going to kill me?"

Yusef Amadi laughed once more.

"I am not going to kill a child!" He said with a broad grin, "There is no fun in that! It'd be too easy!"

"I was going to kill you though." Alex pointed out, dusting himself off and reaching into his pocket, searching for something.

"Yes, but you were never going to succeed," Yusef replied arrogantly, "You could never-"

The rest of his words were lost as Alex produced a second gun from his pocket and shot Yusef at point blank range in the head. The enormous man hit the ground with a thud and Alex moved closer, inspecting his handiwork.

"Never say never." He smiled smugly. "Mate."

Then, Alex pocketed the gun once more and walked back out onto the main street, giving no outward sign he'd just shot a man.

However, as Alex stood in the middle of the thriving, pulsing city, a strange sensation began to overtake him. It was one of being an island, a free-floating sphere… A rootless entity that existed separately from the rest of the world.

It was then Alex realised he was alone. He'd been put in this country on his own, sans false family members or handlers. MI6 had placed him in a situation where he was alone, unwatched, unsupervised… They finally trusted him to do what they wanted. They _trusted_ _him_.

The realisation was like another one of Yusef's mighty punches to the gut. MI6 placed such confidence in their ability to coerce Alex into being their slave that they hadn't bothered to assign anyone to supervise for this mission. The only restriction they had placed upon him was to report in by this time tomorrow for extraction. If Alex didn't show up…

Then what?

Alex felt the question weigh upon him like a physical burden. Would MI6 risk revealing their dirty little secret in order to recover Alex? What if Alex were to just ignore the RSVP and…

And _what_?

Alex swallowed and looked up at the blazing sun. Suddenly, the solution seemed very clear indeed.

_And be free again. And do what he wanted. And not work again for MI6. Ever. _

MI6 had shown trust in his loyalty. They had placed a great deal of faith in him.

With an abrupt, grim smile, Alex Rider hoisted his backpack up comfortably and did the only thing that sense:

He took advantage of the faith and trust placed in him.

He cut his losses...

And ran.

* * *

**Like it? Love it? Hate it? No matter the case, drop me a line ;)**

**TTFN from Vampassassin  
**


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